My Journey With Health And Fitness – A Pain Free Walk

Wahoo, it’s Saturday!!!! That means I get to cut myself a bit of slack and scale back the workouts. From Monday to Friday last week I put in at least 4 hours each day. That includes a mix of walking, online fitness and weights at the gym a couple days. I pushed hard last week so now it is 2 days of recovery. And to be clear, recovery means only doing about 2 hours of walking today and tomorrow.

I got up this morning, put my left foot on the floor and realized for the first time in months I had absolutely no pain, none whatsoever. I thought, ok now it is time to strategize. The reason being is yesterday the plantar fasciitis seemed pretty good, but I noticed after the 2 hour walk, I had some pain in the side of my foot which likely was caused by the messed up ankle. If you recall I stopped wearing my ankle brace during walks because it seemed to irritate the plantar fasciitis but obviously the ankle was not happy with the amount of walking that has happened this week. Time to come up with a plan.

The one thing I can say about being at the condo is I have enough equipment down here that I am prepared for just about anything. So, I went digging in the bathroom drawers and found what I was looking for, an ankle sleeve. This is basically a tight compression sleeve that gives some stability to my ankle without restricting the mobility as much as the brace does. I don’t normally like wearing it because the seams bother me (it has more to do with how they feel against my skin than anything) but I thought what the hell, let’s give this a try.

Off I went for my early morning walk and I realized this plan seemed to be working. I had absolutely no pain in my heel and my ankle felt a bit more supported. However, I realized things could be different by time I completed 10 km. It was a lovely walk with it being the right temperature and lots of cats wanting some loving (and food) from me. I got back to the condo and both my ankle and heel still felt great. Wow, that hasn’t happened in so long.

I’m celebrating my pain free day and hoping it is the same tomorrow. Walking is just so much more enjoyable when it doesn’t hurt. I’m going to be optimistic and not think this was a one off but rather a sign that things are finally healing.